City emerges a winner from planned routes

THE city council's economic development manager John Hickey sees Toowoomba as a fortunate exception.

Mr Hickey, having viewed the proposed North-South Rail Corridor routes, believes other towns located along the proposed paths will be bypassed because of the train s 110km/h speed.

"It will be flying," Mr Hickey said.

Following an Ernst & Young study, commissioned by the Federal Government, Toowoomba has emerged as the winner from Australia s buckling port infrastructure.

According to the study, which examined the cost and travel time of four proposed North-South Rail Corridor routes, Toowoomba looks set to benefit from its location along the two most favourable rail paths.

Port Botany in Sydney, which plays a significant role in Australia s export industry, has a congested bottleneck status that equates to a meagre 40% reliability factor and export delays.

To combat such delays, the Federal Government is looking to rail to get manufactured goods out of Melbourne and to their destination.

The Ernst & Young study examined four routes, each designed to connect Melbourne to Brisbane.

The proposed Far Western Sub-Corridor ? which travels through Junee, Parkes, Narromine, Coonamble, Burren Junction, Moree, North Star and Goondiwindi before reaching Toowoomba ? was the clear winner in terms of both construction costs, which totalled $3.6 billion, and travel time, which amounted to 21.3 hours.

The second most favourable proposed route, the Central Inland Sub-Corridor, again travels through Junee and Parkes before branching off to Dubbo, Werris Creek, Armidale, Tenterfield, Warwick and Toowoomba at a cost of $8.5 billion and a 24.5 hours required travel time.

Both options include Toowoomba, which provides justification for the Australian Transport and Energy Corridor Ltd chairman Everald Compton's backing of the Charlton Intermodal and logistics hub.

The Toowoomba Bypass would link into access to the port of Brisbane, as the Wandoan to Banana "Missing Link" line would alleviate a major share of coal traffic flowing directly to the Port of Gladstone.